Bowling for Barack
Rob Price

A New York Times article earlier this week described a Penn State student who struck an interesting political deal with her father, a longtime Republican.

The student talked her father into registering as a Democrat in time to vote for Barack Obama in the April 22 Pennsylvania primary. In return, the student would provide the necessary paperwork for her father to re-register as a Republican immediately after the primary.

The father went for the deal.

If Barack Obama is having trouble attracting the votes of blue collar white voters, he doesn't seem to be having much trouble with another significant voting block: our children. My own daughter told me she and her entire college dormitory voted for "Barack" in the New York state primary. Hillary Clinton beat Barack Obama by a comfortable margin in the general state primary, but in Annandale-on-Hudson - where college students outnumber year-round residents - Barack swamped Hillary by a two-to-one margin.

What's more, my daughter reported students in favor of Hillary endured some scathing criticisms from their fellow students who supported Barack. The kids aren't shy about mixing it up.

Not only that, they are generating practical political results. Pennsylvania Senator Robert Casey says he decided to throw his support behind Barack Obama after his own children convinced him Obama would make a better president than Clinton. It sounds like the Casey kids - four of them - just wore their father down. "His kids were on his case," according to one knowledgeable observer quoted in the Times.

I am very interested in children's relationships with their parents, especially when it comes to political arguments. I grew up in a family where political arguments around the dinner table were as common as spreading butter on a roll. My father, an Eisenhower Republican, regularly argued with his parents, who were Robert Taft supporters. And if the conversation ever waned, you could always count on me to say something like, "At least Roosevelt was a great leader." THAT always got things going.

I think it's cool our children are taking an interest in this presidential campaign and lobbying their parents to vote for a favorite candidate. Also, because I'm still pretty much of a kid myself, I decided to lobby my own parents accordingly. I don't know who I'm going to vote for in November, but I do know how to have fun in April.

I called my folks last week to begin exercising a little political influence. They live in Pennsylvania, in the middle of the state, where Democrats are a rare species; nevertheless, I thought there was a chance Barack Obama would wander through their retirement community in search of a few stray votes.

"Barack is riding a bus across Pennsylvania with Bob Casey," I said.

If he stops in Chambersburg, I think you should go meet him."

"Why would we want to meet Barack Obama?" my parents said.

"Because he's cool," I said. "Because he might be the next president. Because it would be fun."

"I don't think it would be fun," my mother said.

"I don't agree with anything he says," said my father.

"I don't think he has enough experience to be president," said my mother.

"What about that crazy minister of his?' said my father.

Obviously, I wasn't doing as good a job in the lobbying department as Bob Casey's children. "Look," I said, "even if you're not gong to vote for Barack Obama, wouldn't it be fun to shake his hand? Wouldn't it be fun to say ''How do you do, Sen. Obama?' You know, it wouldn't hurt you to meet a few new people, for heaven's sake."

"I like meeting new people," my mother said. "I just don't want to meet Barack Obama."

"I didn't want to meet Jack Kennedy," said my father.

I gave up on lobbying my parents. Either they are too old to change their minds, or I'm just not young enough to impress them with my youthful idealism. Besides, Barack missed Chambersburg on his cross-state tour. The last I read, he was in Altoona, bowling with Sen. Casey and a local woman named "Roz."

"Barack threw most of his bowling balls into the gutter," I told my parents later on the phone.

"That surprises me," my father said. "Democrats generally are good bowlers."

"Sometimes they're even great leaders," I said. "Think of Roosevelt."

"We'd rather not," said my mother.